Forget bull or bear — Bitcoin’s in a new era, says onchain analyst James Check

For years, crypto investors have looked to the four-year cycle, anchored around Bitcoin’s halving events, as a kind of sacred roadmap. The theory goes: Every four years, Bitcoin’s supply is cut in half, triggering a bullish frenzy, followed by a euphoric peak, a brutal crash, and then a slow recovery. Rinse, repeat.

But what if that model is starting to break? That is what onchain analyst James Check suggests.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Check said that the tidy frameworks that once defined Bitcoin’s market behavior are no longer as useful in today’s macro-driven, institutionally influenced environment.

Rather than labeling the current market as “bull” or “bear,” Check paints a more nuanced picture. Bitcoin, he argues, is now driven more by macroeconomic conditions and investor psychology than by predictable cycles or halving dates. As such, the lines between bull and bear get blurry.

“The world doesn’t operate on four-year cycles,” he says. “You can imagine a headline tomorrow where suddenly all these tariffs get pulled back […] and markets start to move. I can just as easily construct a case where the next headline could send all risk assets into a pretty nasty decline.”

Check also breaks down why the $70K–$75K range is such a critical confidence zone for the Bitcoin market — and how thinking in terms of scenarios rather than predictions is key for an investor’s long-term success.

Check out the full interview on Cointelegraph’s YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe!

For years, crypto investors have looked to the four-year cycle—anchored around Bitcoin’s halving events—as a kind of sacred roadmap. The theory goes: every four years, Bitcoin’s supply is cut in half, triggering a bullish frenzy, followed by a euphoric peak, a brutal crash, and then a slow recovery. Rinse, repeat.

But what if that model is starting to break?

That’s exactly what leading on-chain analyst James Check suggests in our latest interview. In his view, the tidy frameworks that once defined Bitcoin’s market behavior are no longer as useful in today’s macro-driven, institutionally influenced environment.

Rather than labeling the current market as “bull” or “bear,” James paints a more nuanced picture. Bitcoin, he argues, is now driven more by macroeconomic conditions and investor psychology than by predictable cycles or halving dates. And in that world, the lines between bull and bear get blurry.

“The world doesn’t operate on four-year cycles,” he says. “You can imagine a headline tomorrow where suddenly all these tariffs get pulled back […] and markets start to move. I can just as easily construct a case where the next headline could send all risk assets into a pretty nasty decline.”

Check also breaks down why the $70K–$75K range is such a critical confidence zone for the Bitcoin market—and how thinking in terms of scenarios rather than predictions is key for an investor’s long-term success.

Check out the full interview on our YouTube channel—and don’t forget to subscribe!